Back on Earth, scientists exploring the Antarctic discover a pod unlike anything anyone’s ever seen buried in the frozen snow, estimating to be lodged in the ice for about twenty thousand years. Fearing a work of the alien nature, the scientists call on UNIT’s scientific specialist, the Doctor (with Sarah Jane Smith tagging along), to analyse the pod and find out if it could be a danger to humanity.
The Doctor and Sarah arrive at the wintry scene via transportation from UNIT (really? Couldn’t the Doctor just travel by TARDIS?) and discover that the pod is in fact alien: a Krynoid species seeking heat, waiting to thaw and then latch on to the nearest human, and then take over the world by influencing all the plants to strangle humans to death.
The Doctor, having heard of the Krynoids before, is aware that the Krynoid pods travel in pairs, and goes out into the freezing cold to find the second pod. After finding the second pod, the first is destroyed in a time bomb explosion that blows up the base where the scientists lived. The second pod gets plucked from the Doctor’s hands and is taken back to England, where it is placed in the care of a plant-obsessed man. In a special six-part story, it is up to the Doctor and Sarah to safely get rid of the last pod before it takes over the Earth.
I was reminded of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening halfway through watching The Seeds of Doom. Except the plants are controlled by the Krynoid and involve strangling humans, not releasing suicidal gas. I suppose it’s a mildly common fear to be attacked by plants, as they actually have the potential to kill us all.
On the subject of the Krynoid, the costuming and makeup for the Krynoid-infected humans is spectacular for its time. Really, just wow. It makes the Krynoids seem so realistic and scary. I certainly wouldn’t want to be slowly transfigured into a green, leafy alien.
And after a couple days, you can end up looking like this:
Upon watching this episode, I noticed that the picture quality is superb. The previous story I watched was The Brain of Morbius, re-released on DVD in 2008; The Seeds of Doom was re-released just late last year, and you can tell the difference in the picture quality between the two stories. It certainly is one of the stories I just have to buy on DVD (yeah, I watched this via Netflix).
Whenever the Doctor is around humans, particularly on Earth, he always shouts much more often than when he’s surrounded by anyone who isn’t human. I’ve seen this particularly in this episode, and many episodes in the newer version of the show. Whenever the Doctor encounters a human who possesses greatness and brilliant potential and uses these things to thwart humanity, he gets so cross. I think this is because the Doctor always views humanity as beautiful, and the human race reminds him of his home planet, and any human who turns down the evil path is like the bad side of Time Lords. I don’t think the Doctor wants humans to turn into the Time Lords, so he gently nudges us in the right direction. Now that I think about it, it seems that the Doctor wants to preserve us, in a way: we should only progress and advance for the better, but if we do something wrong, the Doctor must do something about it.
The Doctor and Sarah get put under a lot of violent stress in this episode. While in Antarctica, the Doctor and Sarah are attacked by the Krynoid-infected human while trying to stop the time bomb. They end up having to escape without disabling the bomb, and have to trump through the outrageous cold until someone finds them. Mr Chase, the obsessive plant collector in England, attempts to feed the Doctor and Sarah to a compost grinder. Mr Chase’s armed guards keep pushing around the Doctor and Sarah. Mr Chase’s hired henchman, Mr Scorby, uses violent methods to get what he wants. As Sarah tells Scorby:
Sarah: You’re not complete unless you’ve got a gun in your hand.
Obviously, hired man-servants are meant to feel this way. For example, Butler from the Artemis Fowl series has been trained since he was born to fight, and follows close behind his master with several weapons up his sleeve. On the wrong side, Scorby is a horrible, terrifying baddie, but on the off-chance he happens to be stuck on the good side, he proves to be of great use.
I was surprised at the extended absence of the Brigadier! When the Doctor demanded to reach the Brig to inform him of the Krynoid, some other UNIT official informed the Doctor that he’s still away in Geneva. After watching this episode, I did some research and found out that The Seeds of Doom is the Doctor’s last adventure of which he affiliates with UNIT until the special The Five Doctors, and even then, UNIT appeared only briefly. Could the Doctor have fallen out with UNIT, of which he was celebrated as their best scientific advisor? And after all these years, Martha Jones calls the Doctor back to UNIT in series four of the new Who, and the Doctor insists that UNIT’s tactic of “shoot first, ask later” isn’t his style. This saddens me so (a bit; like the Doctor, I’m not a big fan of UNIT’s style, either) because I really wanted to see Harry Sullivan (of whom I was particularly fond of), the Brigadier, and even Sergeant Benton reprise their roles. Well, thankfully, the Brig returned for an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures…
One minor reason why I love this episode (almost as much as Genesis of the Daleks and Robot) is that Sarah has FOUR outfits in the span of six episodes. I’m among many, many fans in the world who absolutely adore Sarah’s style, and I’m glad she’s had the time to change into several outfits in this episode.
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